He tried to gloat over the fact that he had found her out before she had any inkling of how he felt toward her; he actually believed that! He tried not to wince at the thought of her at Fort Bliss, a Federal prisoner, charged with conspiring against the government. She must have known the risk she took, he kept telling himself. The girl was no fool, was way above the average in intelligence. That was why she had appealed to him; he had felt the force of her personality, the underlying strength of her character that had not harshened her outward charm, as strength so often does for a woman. That was the worst of it. Had she been weak she would never have mixed with any political conspiracy; they would not have wanted her, for intrigue has no place for weaklings. But had she been weak she would never have attracted Starr so deeply, however innocent she might have been. So his reasoning went round and round in a circle, until he was utterly heartsick with no hope of finding peace. There was one thing he could do: it would be tightening the screws of his torture, but he meant to do it for her sake. He would take her to Fort Bliss himself, shielding her from publicity and humiliation; and he would take charge of Vic, and see that the kid did not suffer too much on account of his sister. He would make a man of Vic; he never guessed that he was taking up mentally the burden which Peter had laid upon Helen May. He believed there was good stuff in that kid, and with the right handling he would come out all right. He would put in a plea to his chief for leniency toward the girl too. He would say that she was young and inexperienced and that Holman Sommers had probably drawn her into his scheme--Starr could see how that might easily be--and that her health was absolutely dependent upon open air. They couldn't keep her shut up long; a girl could not do much harm, if the rest of the bunch was convicted. Maybe the lesson and the scare would be all she needed to pull her back into lawful living. She was not a hardened adventuress; why, she couldn't be much over twenty-one or two! After a while, when she had straightened up, maybe ... So Starr thought and thought, fighting to keep a little hope alive, to see a little gleam of light in the blackness of his soul. His head bent, his eyes staring unseeingly at the yellow-brown dust of the trail, he rode along unconscious of everything save the battle raging fiercely within. He did not know what pace Rabbit was taking; he even forgot that he was on Rabbit's back. He did not know that his duty as a man and his man's love were fighting the fiercest battle of his life, or if he did, he never thought to call it a battle.